


Foundations

by Jaelijn



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Holmes Brothers, Holmes Brothers' Childhood, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Isolation, Locked In, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Pre-Canon, accidentally locked in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:47:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26043706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: Young Sherlock Holmes choses the basement to conduct a complicated experiment – possibly not the best of ideas...
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Mycroft Holmes
Kudos: 6





	Foundations

**Author's Note:**

> _Archiving note:_ I am importing this fic to AO3 in August 2020 for archiving purposes. It has not been edited since its original publication in 2010.
> 
>  _Original A/N on LJ:_ Written for myhc_bingo card, prompt: isolation / accidentally locked in. Childhood!story, Holmes being 12 years old and therefore named 'Sherlock'. Third-person-narrative, but shifting spotlights between Sherlock and Mycroft.  
> BTW, does this count as an AU? Technically, it is no change of Canon, but an expansion...

It was most certainly not the best idea he had had, so far. Not when his father was crying drunk and about to smash the furniture in the sitting room. But then again, there was absolutely nothing he could have done about that. In the times his father drank himself into senselessness, it was best to keep out of his way at any rate, if only to avoid being mistaken for a piece of furniture.

Sherlock shrugged off the trepidation he always felt when he descended the stairs from his room in the attic – actually, it was not his room at all, but the space his father had forced him to move into in the spur of the moment. He knew that in his old room, adjoining Mycroft's on the first floor, a considerable amount of his belongings gathered dust – but he had not yet gathered the courage to rise at night and break into his own room, now that his father had locked it and thrown the key into the river running behind the house towards the next village. The windows, sadly, were inaccessible.

But this venture would have to wait for another, more suitable moment. At the present, his goal was the cellar. He had not told Mycroft of what he was planning, and it was probably for the best. Mycroft was... lazy, and while he hated their father's behaviour just as much, his judgement seemed to be clouded by the memories of better times. Before their mother had died in childbirth.

Sherlock could not remember much of the woman, nor of his father before he had lost all reason. To him, the man had always been a brute, and if he had had a place to go, he would have run away long ago. But, having no friends to go to, the best he could do was hide until his father had passed out, then move to the kitchen to fetch something to eat – if there was anything – or beg Mycroft to share, and hide again, bolting the attic room from the inside.

However, even that action send a constant thrill of terror through him. While bolting the door kept him safe, he was nonetheless vulnerable, for his father had retained the key to the lock. When the fancy struck him, he had on various occasions locked Sherlock in, not bothering about food or drink, or any sanitary needs. Usually, it was Mycroft who saved him – Father frequently "forgot".

The longest he had ever passed in that room, alone, in the darkness when his candle failed him – there was no window – had been three days, and afterwards, he had been sick for almost two weeks.

But none of that had any bearing on what he was about to do. During his confinement in the attic, the chemistry set was a valuable gift indeed. It staved off the ennui, and distracted him from the fear of their father breaking down his door and thrash him within an inch of his life. Again.

The experiments were often malodorous and produced gases of which he was certain they were unhealthy, but there was nothing for it. He dared not touch the violin, not even when he was certain that Father was unconscious, so it remained hidden under a loose floorboard, and for him there only remained one alternative, so long as his books were locked in his old room.

As used as he had gotten to the smell and heat, there was no way he could conduct this particular experiment in so small a room with wood and fabric everywhere. He had ignited his bedsheets before, and had no desire to repeat the experience, especially not in the dead of winter as it was now. Explosive experiment were, at any rate, rare, but he would run no risk with this one. It was absolutely elemental that he should try it, and if everything went as he should have suspected, there would be no explosion, but it seemed wise to plan ahead for unforeseeable complications when one was handling nitroglycerine. It had been quite an experience to try getting his hands on a sufficient amount of the compound. Being scarcely twelve years old, the chemist in the village did not tolerate him in the shop, as if he were about to smash the delicate equipment. Sherlock huffed under his breath. If the bloke knew only half of the truth...

At any rate, he had decided that the cellar, or more precisely, one of the large, empty wine barrels which were still stowed there, was the perfect place to conduct the experiment. Should something go wrong, the strong wood would assuredly lessen the explosion, and the walls of the cellar would muffle any sound, as the room was driven into the rock on which the house was built. In short, all he had to do was wait for the appropriate occasion to execute his plan.

It was, of course, imperative that he should wait until their father was drunk and asleep, however, he had waited for over a week before the man had laid hands on his bottles of whatever stuff he was ingesting again, and the unexpected period of soberness had severely tried Sherlock's nerves. His father was at his most violent when he was drunk, that was true, but Sherlock had learned to duck, or suffer through the blows. What he really feared was the lash of the man's sharp tongue and wit. No doubt it had served him well in his army career, but it did not lend itself to raising children, and while discipline was something Mycroft did handle well, Sherlock chaffed against it with every fibre of his being. He was very certain that no blow he had received thus far, however crippling, had been worse than the last verbal attack he had suffered from his father. At that night, he come so close to believing him that he had almost used his chemistry set's scalpel to do... things he rather not thought about.

Thus, he had spent the week in his room, not leaving, or stirring, in the hope that his father had forgotten he was there. Mycroft was, at any rate, busy studying whatever stuff he had to know once the holiday was over. It was useless knowledge really, and Sherlock was almost glad that his father had not bothered to employ a teacher for him until he was old enough to depart for college – he was certain no employee would have stayed long in this cursed household.

Be that as it may, the week of inaction was not good for his mind. He had always been very susceptible to boredom, and he had often felt it dearly when he was forced to inaction. His thoughts needed employment, stimulant, work, or he would assuredly go mad in a very short time, once he could no longer break the circle into which his thoughts had shifted.

He should have waited until his father had passed out in the ruins of the sitting room, but his mind demanded work, and he could not hesitate any longer.

His heart froze at every creaking of the staircase, which could not be avoided, but by sliding down the railing, and such a action was quite impossible with the delicate chemistry set he was handling. However, the shouting and crashing behind the two-winged door to the sitting room never ceased, and he was assured that the drunkard had not heard him.

He had obtained a copy of any key in the house the last time Mycroft had stolen it from their father to open the door to the kitchen – sadly, the key to the attic was not among them – and the door to the cellar was no great hindrance. He had to put down the equipment, of course, to undo the hasp and open the bolt, but soon he was tiptoeing down the small wooden staircase into the cellar. The door had to remain open for a moment for light until Sherlock was able to put down the chemicals and light a candle, and he strained to hear the sounds in the sitting room – their presence would have calmed him, for it meant that his movements had gone unnoticed, but he had been quite correct in his observations – the cellar was soundproof.

He opened one of the barrels, placed everything inside, lit his candle and raced up the stairs again, taking two steps at a time. A loud crash from the sitting room caused him to jump and release the breath he had unconsciously held at the same time. The man was still at it, whatever he was doing.

Carefully, Sherlock closed the door until it was almost completely shut. He had sneaked down to oil the hinges two nights before, and he could still feel his heart drumming in memory of the quest. Then, he had also discovered that it was impossible to perceive that the door had been open if he pulled it very close, at least for a drunkard's eyes. His brother would of course notice the open bolt and hasp immediately. However, Mycroft was fast asleep – Sherlock had heard his snoring on his way down. No doubt his brother had passed out over his books again.

Satisfied, he returned to his chemical equipment, and pushed it to the far end of the barrel before he crawled after it. Of course this would increase his risk of injuries should the chemical concoction indeed explode, but it also drastically decreased his chance of discovery by anyone who entered the cellar, and at present, such seemed the greater danger. 

It was odd to work in so confined a space, with the wood pressing against his backbone and neck, and the candle casting strange shadows on the wood. However, he also welcomed the solitude, and the peace.

His experiment went as he had desired it to, and it was complicated enough to keep him deeply engrossed in his work. It was therefore that he only recognised the sound for what it was as it was already very near. In one smooth movement, he extinguished both Bunsen burner and candle, and pressed his body firmly in the darkest corner of the barrel. Footsteps, the flickering of a light. Heavy, unsteady movements, continues groaning, then an exacerbated mumbling – his father.

Sherlock tried to suppress the shivers of fear that racked his body. If his father noticed something, anything at all, he was in for the gravest punishment he had had in years, and it being winter, that would probably involve a night outside, in the snow. But, of course, the drunkard had noticed nothing.

 _Oh, he was a fool!_ Sherlock should have accounted for the fact that the supply of whiskey was stashed in the cellar, right by the barrels. How he could have overlooked the possibility of his father coming down to refurbish his supply was quite beyond him while his heart was still racing away.

But the footsteps retreated with the clinker of full bottles, and the out-of-tune signing of a military song which was more than menacing without having really approached his position.

It was with trembling hands that Sherlock relight his candle, almost burning himself at the match. He dared not relax, not any more, and as he regarded the experiment, he wondered whether it wouldn't be best to stop, and return some other time. But then, another opportunity might not present itself for weeks, and he could not remove the chemistry set now, in the middle of the experiment... No, he could under no circumstance put up with another day of tedium. There was nothing for it – he had to continue now.

However, the second match to light his Bunsen burner quite dropped from his grasp when, with a heavy metallic clang that resounded on the walls, the bolt on the cellar door fell in place.

He rushed to the door immediately, hoping, praying that he had misheard, but the door was shut, and even though he turned the key in the lock, it would not open, or even yield. The oak was thick, stronger than most doors in the house. There was no way out.

He banged at the door, of course – not caring that his father was the most likely to hear him, not caring for the beating, or the words he was to receive. He could not face being trapped in the darkness, in the cold, not when his candle was already burned to a stump, and he had brought no replacement, for the experiment was almost concluded... In truth, the experiment was quite forgotten.

Sherlock stayed by the door, banged against the rough wood until his hands were bleeding and his voice failed him – _soundproof_ – before he slumped to the floor, shivering. He had never been claustrophobic – in fact, he preferred being locked in to being vulnerable, but he had never faced the possibility of a longer imprisonment without the hope of rescue, or the knowledge that he had but to unlock the door himself. He had never been forced to face utter blackness when his thought were barely channelled , calmed, and slipped too easily back into that frightening circle – no, a spiral. A spiral downwards, faster and faster, until his temples throbbed against his finger as he stared into the flame of his candle. It flickered, and died.

Mycroft had grown accustomed to being his brother's saviour, and when he did not find him up and about even though their father had passed out on the hearthrug in the sitting room, surrounded by shattered bottles and the remainders of their settee and coffee table, he naturally went to look for him. His younger brother usually rejoiced on such occasions – the only moment when he could move freely about the house and be himself without fear of their father harming him. It was rare that he should not use such an opportunity to come down and at least eat, after he had assuredly starved himself for the fear of their father. 

Mycroft saw little enough of Sherlock as long as the man was sober, and frankly, he was worried for his brother. The days of school were a relief to Mycroft, and he was eager to get away, and reluctant to return every time, but for Sherlock, there was no such relief. Sadly, he only allowed Mycroft a glimpse of whether, and how, he was coping, but still, the elder had only experienced two occasions where Sherlock had not seized the opportunity. One, he had been wretchedly ill. Two, his father had kept him locked in the small storage room on the ground floor for a week with only a box of biscuits and a bottle of whiskey for nourishment. It had been a mere chance that the boy, only ten years of age then, had survived.

As it was, Mycroft had already become sufficiently suspicious by the time he had finished breakfast to climb up into the attic and knock at Sherlock's door. Much to his surprise, he found it open, the room empty, and the chemistry set gone from the table on which it used to be placed.

Since he discovered soon that all other belongings of his younger sibling were still in place, including his violin – and Sherlock would never leave without his violin – he felt safe to conclude that his brother was still somewhere in the house, or at least not far away.

He was not, as a quick glance and a call revealed, in the garden, and indeed Mycroft had thought it unlikely, for it had been snowing heavily, and Sherlock had never owned anything warmer than the old dressing gown Mycroft had given him for his birthday. It had been his, and of course was too large for Sherlock's thin frame, but the lack of funds on Mycroft's part had not allowed any other present on that day Sherlock usually regarded as the worst of the year. Their father was never drunk on that day.

The one logical explanation was, then, that Sherlock had hidden somewhere to conduct an experiment, which accounted for the absence of his chemicals. He must have sneaked out of his room in the middle of the night, or Mycroft would assuredly have heard him. However, it was odd that he had not yet re-emerged. Therefore, something must have prevented him from doing so.

Mycroft shuddered as quick succession of horrid pictures flashed through his memory – how someone so young could have had so many brushes with death was quite beyond him. But then again, their father was not an unimportant factor to account for. This time, however, he had apparently nothing to do with it, or Sherlock would long since have come to Mycroft.

It was no use, his reasoning could not tell him where his brother had disappeared to; therefore, Mycroft resorted to extreme measures and walk through every corridor and peered in every room from the top to the bottom of the house, all the while calling his brother's name.  
By the time he reached the stairs that led below ground level and towards the door to the cellar, he felt quite weary and not a little vexed. The least Sherlock could have done was answer, more so as Mycroft had noticed his voice growing more frantic with every passing hour. It was only as he was about to turn away again that he heard the low scraping from the other side of the wooden door to the cellar. Usually, he would have expected a rat, or some other animal, but they kept no pets – none would survive his father's wrath – and the cellar was littered with rat poison.

Mycroft approached the door carefully. “Sherlock?” The bolt was thrown down, the hasp fastened carelessly, bearing the marks of the movements of a drunkard. To think that his brother should have allowed himself to be locked in...  _Just what was he doing in the cellar at any rate?!_

There was some more scraping, fainter than the first.

Mycroft opened hasp and bolt, and pulled at the handle. To his surprise, the door, which he remembered as having rusted hinges and creaking, opened easily, and Sherlock slumped down at his feet.  
He had apparently been sitting on the other side of the door, leaning against the wood, and the scraping sound... Good heavens, his hands were horribly torn and bloody, his fingernails all but split – Mycroft could but fathom how long his poor little brother had been scraping at the door after the strength to knock had failed him.

“Sherlock.” Carefully, he gathered the trembling frame of the boy in his arms, a task that had never been hard, and brushed his thumb over his brother's temple. “Sherlock, look at me.”

The boy, however, only burrowed his face against Mycroft's dressing gown, his face still tear-stricken, the glittering drops flowing freely now that the tension drained from his body, his mutilated hands twitching beyond control.

“Hush, Sherlock. Everything is all right now.”

But he only whimpered, and clung at the fabric of Mycroft's clothes, smearing them with blood, as if trying to save himself from drowning.

Mycroft continued to hold him close, and he could not even bring himself to untangled the grasping hands as he lowered his brother into a hot bath, clothes and all.

Sherlock gasped, and his eyes flew open for the first time, and instantly locked onto his brother's face. “Mycroft.”

“Yes, I'm here. It is all right now. Would you consider letting go?”

Flushing, Sherlock pulled his hands away, only to hiss in pain – immediately his fingers were back in that cramped position he had likely maintained for hours, and the tears were again streaming. “I'm so... sorry. Mycroft, I'm so sorry. I was a fool.”

“Hush.” Mycroft trapped the blood-crusted hands in his and slowly lowered them into the water, washing away the blood and dirt and loose skin. Of course, fresh blood started streaming again, but Sherlock bit his lower lip and said nothing until Mycroft had straighten the tense fingers out where his sibling could not do so and bandaged them with the help of the emergency kit he kept in his room.

Then, he washed his younger sibling's sweat damp hair and massaged his temples, until Sherlock relaxed against the tub, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“What of Father, Mycroft?”

“He's unconscious. I wish you would inform me of your more dangerous experiments.”

“It wasn't,” Sherlock said without defiance, staring down at his bandaged hands resting in Mycroft's lap, where they would remain dry. “He came for the whiskey, and not knowing I was there, bolted the door after himself.”

“I had deduced as much.”

“Of course.” Sherlock looked up at him. “I would like to rest, now.”

Mycroft took him into his room, not wanting to submit his brother to the cold of the attic without fireplace, and tucked him into his bed after Sherlock had struggled out of his now-wet clothings and into his dressing gown, all the while unable to use his hands. It would be best to keep him out of the reach of their father, defenceless as he was.

“Hungry?” Mycroft always kept a box of sweets in his bedroom, well hidden from his brother, who usually would mock him for it, but in his current state, he was beyond bickering. Mycroft fed him three balls of chocolate, before taking one for himself and putting the box away.

He should not have been surprised, but it still shocked him to see that Sherlock was silently crying again, his eyes wide open as if refusing to blink would stop the flow of tears.

“Sherlock...”

“I'm sorry. I don't mean to cry. I'm just so tired... Mycroft, it was so dark, so silent in there! I could see nothing, _do_ nothing – there was nothing to focus on, nothing to concentrate...”

Mycroft closed his eyes briefly. He recognised his own voice in what his brother was describing. In his childhood, he had suffered from the same fears, but he had outgrown them, learned to channel his thoughts to what interested him, by the age of nine. It seemed, Sherlock would not find that relief so easily. “Hush, brother mine. I understand. Rest now. You are save with me.”

And he stroke Sherlock's damp hair until he had fallen asleep.


End file.
